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Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network

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  Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-20 12:33 +0000
    Re: Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> - 2014-05-20 07:07 -0700
      Re: Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network Randy Westlund <Vorzakir@invalid.invalid> - 2014-05-20 16:58 +0000
      Re: Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-20 21:56 +0000
        Re: Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> - 2014-05-20 15:44 -0700
    Re: Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-21 09:09 +0200
      Re: Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-21 18:58 +0000

#2904 — Bruce Schneier runs an open wireless network

Interesting writing:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html

Check at the bottom for the explosion of tech sites commenting on it.
The Internet is soon to collapse under the weight of its own comments.

-- 
RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>

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#2910

RS Wood wrote:
> Interesting writing:
> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
>
> Check at the bottom for the explosion of tech sites commenting on it.
> The Internet is soon to collapse under the weight of its own comments.

Schneier does a fairly good job of presenting the arguments /against/ 
his open network; and the articles at the links he provided which rebut 
his position also do a good job of disagreeing with his policy.

I don't think his arguments /for/ opening his network are at all 
persuasive.  He says "To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet 
access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a 
hot cup of tea."

The provision of access to house guests is not the same as 
'permanent'/continuous provision of access to anyone in the 
neighborhood/ wifi range.  My belief is that he has a responsibility to 
secure his network access limited to his family and his invited house 
guests (who he has also 'invited' to share his network access, but not 
any of those he has not).



-- 
Mike Easter

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#2915

On 2014-05-20, Mike Easter wrote:
> Schneier does a fairly good job of presenting the arguments /against/ 
> his open network; and the articles at the links he provided which rebut 
> his position also do a good job of disagreeing with his policy.
>
> I don't think his arguments /for/ opening his network are at all 
> persuasive.  He says "To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet 
> access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a 
> hot cup of tea."
>
> The provision of access to house guests is not the same as 
> 'permanent'/continuous provision of access to anyone in the 
> neighborhood/ wifi range.  My belief is that he has a responsibility to 
> secure his network access limited to his family and his invited house 
> guests (who he has also 'invited' to share his network access, but not 
> any of those he has not).

I agree with you.  I have my network key posted just above the
router in my house.  Free for guests, not for neighbors.

I live in an urban area, and if I open my network, I'm afraid my
connection will crawl to a halt.  Comcast has actually turned off my
modem before for using too much bandwidth (trying to transfer
several gigs between servers, and saturated my 1 Mbps upload pipe
for 24 hours).  Not that they'll admit it.

But with DD-WRT and many other router firmwares supporting guest
networks, the security concerns are becoming moot.  You can have
your normal WPA2/PSK network on one channel, and a low-priority open
guest network on another channel.  Best of both worlds.

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#2924

In message <bu15tgForfpU1@mid.individual.net> 
  Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote:
> RS Wood wrote:
>> Interesting writing:
>> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
>>
>> Check at the bottom for the explosion of tech sites commenting on it.
>> The Internet is soon to collapse under the weight of its own comments.

> Schneier does a fairly good job of presenting the arguments /against/ 
> his open network; and the articles at the links he provided which rebut 
> his position also do a good job of disagreeing with his policy.

> I don't think his arguments /for/ opening his network are at all 
> persuasive.  He says "To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet 
> access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a 
> hot cup of tea."

That's always been my attitude.

> The provision of access to house guests is not the same as 
> 'permanent'/continuous provision of access to anyone in the 
> neighborhood/ wifi range.  My belief is that he has a responsibility to 
> secure his network access limited to his family and his invited house 
> guests (who he has also 'invited' to share his network access, but not 
> any of those he has not).

I (and he) disagree.

-- 
'Never trust a ruler who puts his faith in tunnels and bunkers and
escape routes. The chances are that his heart isn't in the job.'

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#2926

Lewis wrote:
> Mike Easter

>> I don't think his arguments /for/ opening his network are at all
>> persuasive. He says "To me, it's basic politeness. Providing
>> internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and
>> electricity, or a hot cup of tea."
>
> That's always been my attitude.
>
>> The provision of access to house guests is not the same as
>> 'permanent'/continuous provision of access to anyone in the
>> neighborhood/ wifi range. My belief is that he has a responsibility
>> to secure his network access limited to his family and his invited
>> house guests (who he has also 'invited' to share his network
>> access, but not any of those he has not).
>
> I (and he) disagree.

The essays which Schneier links which support his argument say:

  - the first linked, who has greater experience than Schneier in terms 
of countries and locations says that he has never encountered the 
risks/disadvantages which Schneier lists, and he says his personal 
motivation is "the more open wireless I provide to the world, the more 
people I'll turn on to providing their own open wireless access, and the 
more open WiFi I'm likely to find." I find that a trivial, 
short-sighted, and ineffective argument.

  - the second supporting article's major argument is that opening your 
network isn't that much of a risk.  To me, that isn't really the point, 
the risk.  The point is something different from the risk.  Maybe 
Schneier and his supporters don't get it; my point.

  - the third supporting article says his arguments are different from 
Schneier's.  Oh good.  Maybe he has something.  He says his setup is 
harder to use than Schneier's.  "I don't have a DHCP server running, so 
anyone who wants to use my wireless needs to configure a static address 
on the correct subnet. I'm happy to do this for guests who don't know 
how, but drive-bys are strictly on the do-it-yourself system."


Well that 3rd one is certainly a quaint solution, but maybe it is more 
supportive/ in-line/ of my argument about allowing invited guests into 
my home which includes internet access than providing a wide-open-door 
to the internet for anyone within range of the wifi signal.



-- 
Mike Easter

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#2933

On 2014-05-20, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> Interesting writing:
> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html

It's more obvious when you look at the URL than the article itself but this
was from January 2008.

I wonder if Schneier still has the same feelings now. I did a search on
the site for "wireless" and came up with this article from last September:

"Google Knows Every Wi-Fi Password in the World"

<https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/google_knows_ev.html>

> Check at the bottom for the explosion of tech sites commenting on it.
> The Internet is soon to collapse under the weight of its own comments.

Hasn't happened quite yet, though I noted during the media frenzy over
Heartbleed that many were simply copying or paraphrasing what was said
elsewhere without putting much, or even any, thought into it.

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2970

On 2014-05-21, Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> wrote:
>> Check at the bottom for the explosion of tech sites commenting on it.
>> The Internet is soon to collapse under the weight of its own
>> comments.
>
> Hasn't happened quite yet, though I noted during the media frenzy over
> Heartbleed that many were simply copying or paraphrasing what was said
> elsewhere without putting much, or even any, thought into it.
>

Interesting, I hadn't noted the date.  HackerNews just picked this up
and has been working itself up into a tizzy.  It annoys me when blogged
writing doesn't make the date obvious, but I didn't pay close attention
when I read it either, going straight to the body of the article.

As for serving my guests a hot cup of tea, that might be true, but my
unwanted guests I serve a nice steaming cup of get-the-hell-out, and the
same goes for my wifi router, whose password I change regularly, just in
case.

There are some funny hacks out there for trespassers on your wireless
router, like routing all HTML requests through a proxy server scripted
to serve all images at a horrid resolution for example, or upside down,
or simply serve the same JPG of something unpleasant no matter which
image is requested for a page.  Fun times.

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